


The Love You Take

by SomewhatSlightlyDazed



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Depression, Drugs, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 22:30:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11815488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhatSlightlyDazed/pseuds/SomewhatSlightlyDazed
Summary: After being exiled from Alexandria, Negan finds himself living alone near the place he buried his beloved Lucille. After he begins to hear mysterious music playing at night, he decides to investigate its source. Has he found a new companion?





	The Love You Take

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a writing challenge, and my prompt was “Melpomene - Greek Muse of Tragedy“. This story takes place around the events of issue 170 of the comics, so there may be a few spoilers, but not many. Since Melpomene was originally also the muse associated with music, I decided to incorporate some music into the story. This isn’t smutty at all, and is actually quite dark in comparison to my usual stuff. Be forewarned that there is talk of suicide, so if that is a trigger for you, please be aware. 
> 
> On a personal note, this is the first thing I have written in over a month (which is quite a while for me!), so it’s kind of a big deal to me. I hope you all like it and it’s not too sad.

_Once there was a way to get back homeward..._

Negan’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of music drifting through the window next to his bed, which he had left ajar before going to sleep. Faint piano chords were carried in on the breeze from a distant location. Christ! How long had it been since he’d heard another human voice, let alone actual music?

_Once there was a way to get back home._

The darkness inhabiting this still-unfamiliar room seemed to press against him as he waited for his eyes to adjust to it. Groaning, Negan heaved his body from the mattress and stood, bare-chested in front of the window. His eyes scanned the street outside before moving on to the other buildings in the vicinity. He saw nothing to indicate the source of the sound.

_Sleep pretty darling, do not cry…_

“Fucking Beatles?”

He mumbled the half-formed question to himself. His voice was still hoarse from sleep and the words were eaten up by the night.

_And I will sing a lullaby._

Lucille had listened to The Beatles once upon a time, while Negan had always been more of a Neil Young kind of guy. The Beatles were a little bit too saccharine and lovey-dovey for him, and he often teased his wife about her penchant for listening to “that hippy bullshit”, as he called it. She had taken his teasing in stride, offering him only patronizing smiles and promises that he might understand why she liked this music someday if he ever managed to grow a heart.

The momentary flash of earlier, happier memories sent a shiver down his spine and caused his breath to catch in his throat as if he had been doused with ice water. He allowed himself only a minute of regret-soaked nostalgia before pulling on his typical white t-shirt and leather jacket combination, and heading for the door. After taking the stairs to the first floor two at a time, he raced into the street outside of the house he had been sleeping in, and stood still in an attempt to pinpoint where the music was coming from.

By the time the rest of the band had kicked up and Paul McCartney began to advise him that he was going to “carry that weight a long time”, Negan had determined that the sound was coming from the north east. He began to make his way through the abandoned town in search of the mystery DJ, still cognizant of the fact that the noise was likely to draw every walker in the area to him.

Maybe that had been the point.

Was this Rick the Prick fucking with him for some reason? Or maybe it was someone new. Someone watching him, waiting to draw him away from his meager supplies long enough to swipe them and run off before he got back.

This thought caused Negan to stop dead in his tracks. He stood in the open street trying to decide whether he should retreat back to the abandoned house he had been sleeping in for the week since he had left Alexandria, or if he should keep searching for the music’s source.

_And in the middle of the celebration I break down._

Swallowing the completely founded paranoia he felt, he decided to press on, following the trail of melody into the moon-lit night. This mystery was too intriguing. And who fucking knew? Maybe he was wrong about something for once!

At last he came to a tall, industrial building on the edge of the town. By now the music had swelled enough, due mostly to his proximity to it, for Negan to determine that this building was its fountainhead. The large man stood in the shadow of the edifice, staring up at a faint light emitting from its topmost floor. He thought that the place reminded him a little of the Sanctuary, and this connection caused a smirk to spread across his face.

“Let’s see who the fuck you are,” he mumbled before carefully grasping the main door’s metal handle to yank it open.

Standing away from the open doorway, he waited for a moment to see if a walker would emerge. Actual humans, of course, weren’t so careless as to walk out into the unknown. If there were any of _those_ pent up in the building, they would likely be hiding. Waiting.

Negan quietly trespassed the threshold leading into the main floor of the building. Taking another pause to look around the grim surroundings, he eventually came to a stairwell which seemed to climb the entire building in a tight zig-zag from floor to floor. As he followed the stairs up with his eyes, a glimmer of hope sprang to life within him.

Other people could mean danger. But they could also mean companionship.

He had not been as utterly alone as he was now since the days just after Lucille had died all those years ago. Even during his time in Alexandria’s jail there had been some companionship for him. Fuck yes, he’d had visitors! More than even Rick knew about at the time; and thank god for that! If he had known that his precious, little son had been visiting ol’ Neegs every so often, that prick would have absolutely shut that shit down.

As much as he hated to admit it, preferring to think of himself as a self-sufficient badass, Negan needed other people. The solitary nature of his current situation was driving him to the brink of hopelessness, even with Lucille buried nearby.

Although he had chosen to come alone to this place, thinking that perhaps living in proximity to his wife’s wooden embodiment would comfort him, he needed human interaction in order to keep the ever-present grief he felt from spilling over into his conscious mind. It was the only way he could go on for much longer. Solitude, for him, meant death.

Negan mounted the stairs as quietly as possible, his footfalls masked by the repetition of the music drifting down to him from above: _“Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you…”_ the lyrics promised. He didn’t put much stock in omens, but maybe this was a good sign.

_“Love you. Love you…”_

With each step, he began to construct an image of who he might find when he reached the top floor. Maybe the person playing the music would be a woman who would look at him with soft eyes and a kind smile. She would never know anything about his past fuck ups, or the multitude of terrible things he had done as the leader of the Saviors. Maybe she would let him stay with her, and they would fall in love. He could protect her from the harsh world outside and they would fall asleep each night in one another’s arms, totally oblivious to the fact that they were living in a dead world.

Finally, he reached the top of the stairs and came face-to-face with a grey metal door. His heart fluttered up to his throat like a caged bird as he gingerly reached for the leaver that would grant him access to the room. After a deep breath, Negan pushed the lever down and allowed the door to swing open with a shrill creek that echoed against the concrete walls. The music’s volume ramped up without the door there to block it from fully entering his ears.

_And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love…you make…_

He stepped into the room and took in the tableau before him. A single, flickering lamp sat on top of a wooden crate next to the room’s main window. Beside this was a second crate, which held an old-fashioned boom box from which the music played.

The song began to wind down in a chorus of swirling instruments and voices, coming to a crescendo before dying out entirely. There was a few seconds of static before the tape that had been playing ran out and the play button on the machine popped up with an audible click that was much too loud in the somber room, causing him to jump slightly.

His gaze then fell upon something in the room’s corner, which he took to be a pile of blankets and pillows; perhaps some kind of make-shift bed for the room’s inhabitant. It was a bit too dimly lit to make out any details, so he strode toward the lamp with the intention of using it to check out his surroundings more carefully.

Upon nearing the table, he noticed a small, spiral-bound book which sat open near the lamp. Intrigued, he picked it up and read the words written on the page to which it had been left open:

_Nick has been gone for more than a month now. I know he won’t be back. He’s probably dead. The biggest herd of roamers that I have ever seen came through just after he left to go hunting, and I’m sure they were coming from the direction he had gone in._

_I’m too afraid to leave. I’d rather die just about any other way than being ripped apart by those things. The food ran out last week and the water just yesterday. I’ll be dead soon too, either by choice or by circumstance._

_At least he left me with the medication. Lots of pills should do the trick. I didn’t know how many to take, so I just took them all. I hope I won’t suffer._

_I just want to go to sleep and then this will be over. If there’s a God, maybe he’ll understand. I just don’t want to die alone and in pain. I know Nick won’t come back and find me like this. There’s that little bit of comfort at least._

_I can feel the pills taking hold now. Kind of a numb tingle in my legs and arms. It’s almost nice, aside from the nausea. I hope that passes soon. I’ll put on some music to fall asleep to. Music always calms me down._

_What should my last song be? Maybe if I time it right I can drift off to the end of the Abbey Road medley. That’s always a pretty song…_

_Love you,_

_Mel_

The first low moans began from behind him as Negan crumpled the paper and tossed it to the floor beside the crate. He took out the hunting knife he carried without turning around immediately. He already knew what he would find in the corner of the room under the blankets and pillows.

As he strode toward the pile of fabric and foam which had begun to twitch and move as the newly-turned walker under it rose from the floor, Negan forced himself to take a breath. Every step he took was a door to his heart closing off, sealing himself away from disappointment and loneliness.

“Fucking stupid bitch,” his voice was dull and lifeless in the cold room, “Couldn’t fucking even try to get through it. After all that. Fucking waste of space.”

Another moan met him in response and he readied the knife. “Mel” stood before him. Her skin had a deathly cast to it, and vomit trailed down her chin and across her chest. From the looks of her, Negan wasn’t so sure that she had gotten her wish for a painless death.

As the blade of his knife pushed through her skull, he wondered if “Mel” had been short for Melanie or Melissa. What did it matter now? She was dead and gone before he even got to the front door.

“Fuck you!” he grunted, pulling the knife out of her head and watching the body drop to the floor.

Taking one last look at the room, Negan felt the sting of tears threatening to breach his eyes, but he fought them back. The apathetic and mercenary side of him took over in order to protect him from the knowledge that perhaps he and Mel weren’t all that different. They were both alone, low on hope, and nearing the end of a pointless and stupid journey.

Maybe that’s why he hated her so much in that moment: she reflected all of the parts of him that he had to keep in check in order to keep going every day. These were the parts of him that whispered to him at night as he lay alone in the abandoned house, telling him to give up and give in.

Mel had pills. He had a gun. How much longer until the call of the abyss was too loud to ignore?

“Fuck you,” he whispered bitterly to himself, and left the room that had become a monument to desperation and misery, vowing to move on from this town in the morning. There was nothing for him here.


End file.
